Amidst soaring gas prices, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain is getting fact-checked after insinuating on social media that domestic energy production is somehow higher now than under the America First Trump administration, or apparently under any U.S. presidency.
One expert claimed this is statistic abuse.
One of the first acts of President Joe Biden upon taking office was to reverse America’s energy independence. Yet Klain appears to be touting a “fact” that the U.S. industry is producing an all-time record of 11.18 million barrels of oil per day on average.
In addition to sharing a bar graph, Klain retweeted a tweet with the same premise from U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) who claimed that “The oil companies can still increase output on their existing leases, but the idea that gas prices are high because Biden somehow shut down American energy is plainly wrong.”
Lots of assertions on this website about why gasoline production is not keeping up with demand, but here’s a fact about US oil output: pic.twitter.com/VP0Rf95eP8
— Ronald Klain (@WHCOS) June 12, 2022
Average domestic oil production under Biden is now higher than under Trump or any past president.
The oil companies can still increase output on their existing leases, but the idea that gas prices are high because Biden somehow shut down American energy is plainly wrong. pic.twitter.com/DRPRjdq4aF
— Tom Malinowski (@Malinowski) June 12, 2022
The Washington Free Beacon debunked what might be considered misinformation coming from the Democrat-controlled federal executive branch that often laments misinformation or disinformation:
The White House and its allies are circulating a misleading talking point that the Biden administration is overseeing the most oil production in U.S. history…
The claim from Democrats that domestic production is higher now than during the Trump administration is based on a comparison of four-year averages that includes the tremendous drop in economic activity at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Domestic oil production under Biden has yet to come close to the pre-pandemic levels reached under the prior administration…
The Free Beacon analysis of domestic crude oil production data shows that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States produced just under 13 million barrels of oil per day at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020. For comparison, that figure is more than 20 percent higher than the amount of oil the United States produced per day in September 2021. Energy industry expert James Wilson, who runs an oil and gas economics consulting firm, says the White House is abusing statistics to fit a narrative.
“You can claim anything with statistics,” Wilson [he said]. “When COVID hit, the price of oil dropped and then production dropped. Surprise, surprise…The bottom line is that when Trump was president, these companies started producing and oil was cheaper.”
Klain was supposedly relying on content from a liberal blogger for his statistics.
Parenthetically, Klain is the same official who subsequently admitted that “we did every possible thing wrong” during the 2009 swine flu pandemic when Joe Biden was put in charge of the Obama administration’s response to the outbreak. Klain was then-VP Biden’s chief of staff at the time.
Apart from die-hard Biden apologists, there is skepticism about some creative bookkeeping from an excuse-making administrative that is otherwise hostile to the fossil fuel industry.
Good lord
That graph is a textbook case of lying with statistics
— The H2 (@TheH2) June 15, 2022
the origin of their claim is literally a chart made by matt yglessias's intern
— Joe Gabriel Simonson (@SaysSimonson) June 15, 2022
This chart is from last summer. pic.twitter.com/TIFJ1DtjYI
— Andrew Breitbart's ghost (@OfBreitbart) June 15, 2022
This is chart crime, you’re creating the Biden column based upon a prediction of oil production increases that have not yet occurred. pic.twitter.com/Mq8mRcKjxK
— Joe Colangelo (@Itsjoeco) June 12, 2022
Democrats want high gas prices. https://t.co/f6Zr9hiwIa
— Gurgun (@Gurgun1989) June 12, 2022
1. EV’s aren’t clean
2. Price gouging is already illegal.
3. Dems claim “it’s a global commodity, therefore we can’t control the price…”Which is it? It’s so odd that prices took off the moment FJB took office. Perhaps the 100’s of EO’s he signed on day 1 are a factor…
— AV8R (@FL450_420TAS) June 12, 2022
Chart is useless except to make you feel better. US production needs to increase a great deal more than current levels. Accept oil is not going away anytime soon & figure out how to increase production flows. Cut deals with domestic producers. Reserves are not the answer
— gpadini (@gpadini) June 12, 2022
Please
1) link to the source of every graphic you tweet with @-ttribution
2) link to open data the person who visualized it used (@EIAgov)
3) add this info in annotation to make it accessible — like every image tweeted by a @WhiteHouse account, much less one establishing a fact.— Alex Howard (@digiphile) June 12, 2022
Just take a moment and look at this from Cheif of Staff to Pres. Biden, Ron Klain. How out of touch do you have to be to address 𝘛𝘏𝘐𝘚 𝘞𝘌𝘉𝘚𝘐𝘛𝘌 (Twitter) and toss aside the 310 million Americans that don’t use Twitter? It blows my mind, and I’m angry. pic.twitter.com/mu0Vem2w0l
— Floss Obama🙌🏾 (@FlossObama) June 12, 2022
Here’s a cool one about how you guys are really doing a bang up job defeating Covid. pic.twitter.com/22vYEnmm5P
— Andy (@tab0612) June 12, 2022
Get the latest BPR news delivered free to your inbox daily. SIGN UP HERE
DONATE TO BIZPAC REVIEW
Please help us! If you are fed up with letting radical big tech execs, phony fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals and a lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news please consider making a donation to BPR to help us fight them. Now is the time. Truth has never been more critical!
Robert@bizpacreview.com
Robert Jonathan is a staff writer for BizPac Review. He is a longtime writer/editor for news aggregation websites and has also developed content in the legal and financial publishing sectors as well as for online education. He earned a Juris Doctorate from the University of Connecticut School of Law, “a law school the basketball teams can be proud of.”
- Eric Swalwell’s ‘authoritarian’ response to Tim Scott’s defense of parental rights says everything - November 10, 2022
- Law school student alleges professor humiliated her via an exam in revenge for her conservative views - November 10, 2022
- AOC blasts NY Democrat Party leadership after critical GOP wins blowup Dem supermajority - November 10, 2022
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.
